Award Season

Oscar Nominations 2017: The Biggest Snubs and Surprises

We knew that La La Land would be big at the 89th annual Academy Awards—but few thought it would be this big. (Credit where credit’s due.) The romantic, proudly retro musical had a very good Tuesday morning, earning a staggering 14 Oscar nominations—enough to tie the record for most nominations ever received by a single movie. (If only it’d had meatier roles for supporting actors, it could have broken the record altogether.)

Everyone expected La La Land to dominate—but nobody expected 13 Hours: The Secret Soldier of Benghazi to sneak into the best-sound-mixing category, or Passengers to get two nods (two!). And few thought that Viggo Mortensen would score his second best-actor nomination for the little-seen indie Captain Fantastic. The nominees list this year is peppered with little surprises like that—enough of them to make the 2017 ceremony seem like it might be less predictable than Oscar telecasts of years past.

Video: The 9 Biggest Oscar Nomination Snubs

Just look at original song, an often idiosyncratic category that this year includes “The Empty Chair,” a song from an HBO documentary about Frontline journalist James Foley, among the usual suspects (songs from La La Land and Moana). Or the best-supporting-actor category: front-runner Mahershala Ali is there, of course, for his stirring work in Moonlight, as are three of his fellow Screen Actors Guild nominees, Dev Patel, Lucas Hedges, and Jeff Bridges . But the Academy left out the fifth member of that group, Hugh Grant, in favor of Michael Shannon’s work in Nocturnal Animals—a movie that’s had a surprisingly robust award season, despite its divisive nature. (See also: Aaron Taylor-Johnson getting an unexpected nomination for supporting actor at the Golden Globes—and actually winning the thing, to the shock of pretty much everyone.)

At least Grant can take solace in the fact that his co-star Meryl Streep just got a somewhat surprising best-actress nod, bringing her total amount of career nominations to 20. (Who’s overrated, again?) Grant is also in good company: the Oscars snubbed several of their favorite sons and daughters this year, including Tom Hanks (for Sully, which was shut out besides one technical nod), Martin Scorsese (for Silence, which also earned a single nomination—for cinematography), and Amy Adams. (The Academy gave eight nominations to Arrival, but didn’t recognize her anchoring lead performance. It just doesn’t translate.) The documentary category feted O.J.: Made in America and 13th, but left out their buzzy political comrade Weiner. And despite a surge of support, Annette Bening was denied a nod for her warm, celebrated work in 20th Century Women.

The most shocking snub of all, though, may be one that would have been equally shocking if a nomination had come through. We’re speaking, of course, about Deadpool, the little superhero movie that could—until it couldn’t. Despite a strong run of lead-up awards, including a nod from the Producers Guild, Ryan Reynolds’s super-spoof ended up being shut out at the Oscars, even in the technical categories. Suicide Squad, however, is now an Oscar-nominated movie, for its makeup and hairstyling. We’re certain to hear all about that in Deadpool 2.